Naayak: Formulaic

What does (a+b)² mean to you? Well, that’s Nayak for you. There goes one spoiler. Damn.

Even if I give away the entire plot with all the twists, chances are that you will still go ahead and watch the film. You might even come out enjoying it because the story is not the point at all. It is about how the whole works as a package and how faithfully Vinayak adheres to the success formula, which he had created himself. Going by the number of times he manages to tickle the ribs, one should say he has done well.

Nayak should not be judged on its intelligence because it is to miss the point completely. CCTV cameras record videos in HD, CBI officers drink on their duty and none of them have ever heard of any terms like DNA or fingerprints and the works. Its agenda is to make you laugh, laugh more and laugh harder. The film can boast of great performances by the support cast in eliciting guffaws through out its entire runtime. For a change it is Posani that spearheads the comedy track, Brahmanandam is his usual self and JP continues what he has done in Krishna. Together they make the film a fun-ride, one that you won’t mind despite its dangerous obsession with chopped limbs and severed legs. 

Ram Charan has done only four films prior to this but unfortunately he doesn’t have to do anything he has not done before. Kajal Agarwal and Amala Paul together have lesser screen time than Fish Venkat that is excluding the songs. If you include them, they come close. That does not seem a bad idea at all given how poorly their characters are written (or not written at all).

V V Vinayak looks uninterested in directing the action sequences but he gets his act right with the generous amount of comedy. The visuals are surprisingly tacky for such a high budgeted film and they could have certainly gone easy on that fish eye lens. Production design in Kolkata episodes is awful. All the songs are bad with special criticism reserved for Thaman’s Subhalekha Rasukunna, which is a brutal, terrible, Tarantinoesque murder of Ilaiya Raja’s classic.  

All in all a film which is targeted at the masses and plays it up to the galleries with numerous references to other stars in the family. There is not much to dislike and the film itself does not have any illusions of greatness.

Nothing to write home about. Ahh..well. 

Table No 21: Not a great start to the Year

Table No 21 is neither as intelligent and imaginative as Slumdog Millionaire nor as cheesy and tacky as Soham Shah’s Luck, two of the recent films that centered themselves on reality shows. But it does not sit comfortably midway either.

The plot starts as a couple struggling with their relationship get a chance to spend a vacation in Fiji. Soon learn it is a part of an elaborate plan with things getting dark and grimy when they find themselves being a part of a game that can give them 21 Crores of Rupees. Paresh Rawal is at the helm of the game, controlling it and manipulating the couple. A grim looking young man with stubble who doesn’t have any purpose except showing himself at convenient moments aids him.  There are many references to the number 21 and not all of them are great except the last one at the ending credits.

Make no mistake, Table No 21 is a film with noble intentions but for a thriller the writing is a bit too lazy and the plot takes its time to get going.  The twist at the end which is closely guarded through out with red herrings planted does not come across as disturbing as it is desperate to. The dialogues are no great shakes either with “If you lie, you die” being repeated every time they want Rawal to sound menacing. Rajeev Khandelwal tries his bit but finds it difficult to make us empathize with him. The writers don’t do him any favors either with a poorly etched role. Paresh Rawal is a veteran but here he just goes through his motions and is never quite the delight he ought to be. Tena Desae wears a bikini, shaves her head but her she can't act or kiss good.

There are a couple of songs at the beginning and the end, which hamper the narrative but are forgettable otherwise. Background score is conspicuous by its lack of impact. The film is shot at Fiji but it could as well have been Ramoji Film City and Goa since the locales of the place are never explored.

The best use of Table No 21 could be to serve as a warning for all of us not to fill all those forms that are thrown at us in various shopping malls promising exotic trips. Now that is a worthy lesson. So it’s not so bad after all is it?

Dabangg 2: Fight, Dance, Repeat!!!

Clearly Dabangg2 is not a film for people who read or write stories. Clearly Dabangg2 is not a film for people who read or write reviews. Heck, Dabangg2 is clearly not a film for people who read or write at all.

For those of you who crib that Salman Khan no longer ‘acts’ in his films I recommend watching Dabang2. He doesn’t even do his steps here. His belt sways itself automatically to ‘Hud Hud Dabang’. Now if that doesn’t tell about the star I don’t know what does.

With Chulbul Pandey’s mother and bothersome father-in-law safely out of way in the original, we no longer have the need to be concerned about what happens to anyone. Sure, we know the baddies get killed, the wifey gets her share of kisses and songs, the father is content and happy listening to the heroics of his son and the brother is only too willing to be ignored. So what we are left with are the antics of the actor having so much fun himself and delivering some of them to us too.

The story is such a joke that had Arbaaz Khan heard it himself, he would have laughed to his heart’s content. Pandeyji has now transferred himself to Kanpur and is busy saving children from goons there. But as we all know the world does not let a man do his aviator tricks and pelvic thrusts in peace does it? So we have Bacha Bhayya (Prakash Raj) and his two brothers. Why three you may ask. It is simple. One to get killed in the first half and the other who has some political ambitions to be killed in the second half. You did not think Salman Khan needs to get his shirt off to fight Prakash Raj. So we have the third beefed up brother to facilitate the climax act. Gotcha?

This is a Salman Khan film and no one messes his party for him and this applies for decent artists too. Deepak Dobriyal learns it the hard way when his head gets twisted for putting in a competent act. People are equal in number whether he wants to kill them or shake a leg with them dressed impeccably in formals. Believe me, all of it is so entertaining that the first half breezes away even when it has no real story to connect these acts and you are not even guilty of enjoying it.

So folks, that’s about it. Go and Watch Dabang2 because “Chulbul Pandeyji aapka Manoranjan Karenge”

Aate Hai.

Talaash: Say No to Cheese

Talaash is a great film made out of an absurd story and it is not necessarily a good thing to happen. The much-hyped twist at the end might live up to it in terms of its shock value to find its presence in  an Aamir Khan film but it is certainly out of place. It is surprising to see how everyone decided to play along when the bluff was so easy to call and to think that they have made one flawless film out of this insanity is difficult to chew.

It is a tempting thought to call Talaash a film-noir since it evocatively checks most of the boxes of the genre. But the generous amount of cheese its script is peppered with and the leisurely pace with which the plot unfolds bring down what could have been a decent tribute to the genre.

The film is consistently watchable thanks to the ensemble both on and off the screen. Kareena and Nawazuddin Siddiqui are the standout performers and the later in particular adds an altogether different and interesting perspective to the plot. Aamir plays the role of the cop with his usual earnestness but Surjan Shekhawat is not one of his memorable roles since the character is neither likeable nor layered enough to follow. He asks all the questions in the movie but forgets or conveniently ignores the most important one. The logic of the script. Rani is a natural and seems to be at home playing Roshni who does not resort to theatrics to make her point. Mohanan’s cinematography gives the film the desired moody feel and Ram Sampath’s background score manages to hook you to the proceedings. As we noted earlier, this is indeed a brilliant ‘film’ if one has to go by the true definition of cinema.

There is a scene in the film where Surjan Shekhawat contemplates what might have been his son’s fate had he chose to act differently on that fateful day. Perhaps the film’s current ending is one of those choices (the wrong one, even in the film) made by the writing team. Perhaps there was a better ending to the tale that was not shown to us which would have been more fitting. With a couple of smooches and tackier visuals, this one would well have been Raaz 4 or Jism 3.

To sum it up Talaash is Travis Bickle trapped in a film-noir only to be bailed out by the Bhatts.

Krishnam Vande Jagadgurum: Krish Can Do Better

Krishnam Vande Jagadgurum does not travel that extra mile to become the kind of cinema it deserved to be and contents itself with being a regular potboiler.  It is indeed a pity to see a story having immense potential go down as another run of the mill good vs evil with none of the evil forces matching the hero’s strengths, literally and otherwise. Considering there was no lack of resources in its execution and conceptualization, the output is hugely underwhelming.

Krish had vast and important material at his disposal but for some reason instead of working with it he choses to play it up to the galleries with unnecessary item songs, Brahmanandam and a hackneyed climax which does not serve any purpose other than allowing it’s lead to flex his chiseled body. Of what use to a cinema are all those brilliantly written dialogues if the happenings on screen have little or nothing to do with them. Even as a tribute to the Telugu Theatre and Surabhi Company this seems to be an incomplete film as it focuses too much on the irrational urge to avenge the baddies.  Towards the end of the film, there is a scene where Rana who plays Babu, the grandson of Surabhi Veteran feels that he does not deserve to be playing the eponymous drama Krishnam Vande Jagadugurum. But immediately after another dialogue (a brilliant one again, make no mistake) he transforms himself and changes his mind. Even to a stupid software engineer like me, this is not done. Sir.

All of this is not to say that KVJ is a bad film. In fact it is one of the better films that have been made this year and without a doubt a thought provoking one. But it is out of sheer frustration that Krish has robbed us all off a greater film, one that only he could have made. Krish the screenwriter has definitely let down Krish the director and Krish the dialogue writer.

Mani Sharma comes out with a thumping background score challenging the director to come up with equally powerful visuals and establishes himself all over again. Honors are also due to LB Sriram who captivates us with sheer understanding of his role. Here is an actor, who knows what was required of him and demands his attention from the viewers and the director as well, something which was found wanting in the protagonist, despite having a longer screen time.  

Krish has an interesting tendency to follow his leads in their journey tahrough the wakes of life to study their transformations, something that he has done brilliantly in Gamyam and reasonably well in Vedam with some of his characters. He follows the same pattern in KVJ with RaNa but his transformation looks more as inevitability rather than an effect of a cause.

KVJ ultimately is a film, which will be remembered for what it could have been rather than what it has become and that is a reasonable allegation.